"There you go," he said. "All clean."
Mahree grinned at him as she wrapped the towel around her head, turban fashion. "It feels great. Thanks again."
Rob sat down on Dhurrrkk's bedding cross-legged, idly watching as she toweled the hair. When the moisture was squeezed
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out, she began combing it, pulling the thick rope over her shoulder and working up from the bottom, carefully separating the strands with her fingers before she combed them.
"How long?" she asked casually, after a while.
He checked his watch. "Twenty-three and a half hours."
"Exactly?"
Rob grinned at her. "Hardly. I'm not down to counting seconds."
"Yet."
"Yet," he agreed, sobering.
"Rob . . ."she began, then stopped.
"Yes?" he prompted gently. "What is it?"
Mahree couldn't look at him. She picked blindly at the last knot, obviously fighting tears. "If it weren't for me," she said thickly, "you wouldn't be in this mess."
"I asked to come," he reminded her, his voice even.
"I know," she said, finally running the comb the length of her hair without encountering any tangles. She tossed it back over her shoulder defiantly, then looked up at him. "But you ought to hate me. Oh, God, you ought to. I ...
deserve . . . it." Her voice broke, and she took a deep, gasping breath, covering her face with her hands.
Rob's heart went out to her. "Mahree ..." Quickly he scrambled over to put an arm around her shaking shoulders. "You know I don't hate you. I could never hate you, kiddo."
She stiffened, then jerked away. When she looked at him, her eyes flashed angrily. "Dammit, Rob, will you stop calling me kiddo'? You of all people should have some idea of what it's like to be talked down to because you're young! I'm an adult, not your kid sister! I have to fight to be treated with respect!"
Rob felt as shocked as if she had slapped him. "I didn't--" he began, then hesitated . . . thinking, remembering. "You're right," he muttered, finally. "I've been patronizing you right along, haven't I? I'm sorry. You have to believe me, Mahree, I didn't do it deliberately to hurt you."
Mahree ran the comb through her hair again, dividing the thick strands into three parts. "I'm sorry, too," she said in a muffled voice. "I shouldn't have let it get to me like this." She smiled wanly. "I guess I'm feeling the effects of having only twenty-three hours and whatever odd minutes to live."
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"Come to think of it, they will be pretty odd," Rob agreed, but the attempted humor fell very flat.
She bit her lip. "At the risk of being morbid, what's in store for us? Honestly, will . . . will it be painful?" Her voice was almost steady.
"Not really," he said slowly. "Uncomfortable, but by the time it gets really bad, we won't care anymore. As the oxygen in here gets used up, hypoxia will set in, and we'll feel pretty good, actually . . . like we'd had a few too many. Then we'll just pass out and . . ." He shrugged, snapping his fingers.
"In maybe five minutes, it'll all be over."
"I suppose that's reassuring," she said dryly, then she sobered. "Rob . . . can I ask you a favor?"
"Sure."
"Would you mind if I ... hold your hand? At the end, I mean?" Hearing her own words, she gave a disgusted snort. "God, I sound like that cringing little seamstress at the end of Tale of Two Cities'. Forget I asked."
"Hey, that's okay, I wouldn't--won't--mind," Rob said, and now his voice cracked. "It'd be comforting to me, too. But ... Mahree ... you told me to be honest. If you're thinking that you'll succumb first, you're almost certainly wrong."
She shivered, despite Rosinante's heat. "Why?"
"Because Jolie has a lower oxygen content than Earth, and you've grown up used to breathing less O2 than Terrans. Also, you're smaller than I am. The less body mass, the less oxygen required, generally. So hypoxia--that's oxygen deprivation, the stage where people get to feeling high--won't hit you nearly as quickly as it will me or Dhurrrkk'. The same for apoxia, oxygen starvation."
"Oh," she whispered. "Are you talking about just a few minutes difference?"
"Maybe," he said, carefully not looking at her. "Or it could be more . . .ten, fifteen minutes, perhaps."
"I couldn't take that," Mahree whispered. "I've seen friends of mine die before, during the Lotis epidemic. I nursed a couple of them, even, but . . .
watching you and Dhurrrkk'--I just couldn't. Can you give me something when things get bad that will knock me out? Make me sleep?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I can. I will. Don't worry."
He yawned suddenly, then smiled. "Speaking of sleep, that's 175
the best suggestion I've heard so far. Best way to conserve our oxygen.
C'mon." He held out his hand.
Mahree finished braiding her hair, then let him pull her up. Together, they went into the control room. "Time to sleep, FriendDhurrrkk'," Rob said, dimming the lights. "Conserve air."
The Simiu nodded. "I will see you soon, my friends."
In the cramped space beside the pilot's couch, Rob knelt, pulling their sleeping mats close together. "C'mon," he said again, stretching out himself,
"lie down. You're worn out."
Reluctantly, Mahree lay down beside him. "It seems stupid to waste the time we've got left."
"We'll be extending the time we've got left," he pointed out. He reached over and took her hand, his grip firm and comforting. "We've hardly slept at all for the past forty-eight hours, so close-your eyes ..." He watched her face in the dimness. "That's it ... relax ..." Lowering his voice to just above a whisper, he kept up a soothing monotone. "Good ... just let yourself drift ... relax your legs, your shoulders ... that's good, very good. Now you're floating, and that's good, too ..." Her fingers slackened in his, her breathing slowed. "Good ...
relax ... relax ..."
He continued murmuring, watching her drift off.
Rob let his own eyes close. Her hand in his was the last thing he was aware of, as slumber claimed him . . .
Dhurrrkk' wailed, clutching his chest as it heaved, seeking air--but there was none. Mahree's face was contorted and purple as she, too, shrilled a high, keening scream. Both of them tumbled to the deck, thrashing convulsively, their mouths opening and closing, emitting that never-ending shrieking wail--
Rob jerked awake, carrying that last hideous dream-image before his eyes so vividly that it took him a moment to realize that it was, indeed, only a nightmare. And stil the wailing shril ed, that insistent, nerve-wracking wail of--
--of Dhurrrkk's alarm!
He sat up, eyes wide. "What the/w?//?"
Mahree was staring at him. "The alarm," she whispered, finally, in an agony of hope. "That's Dhurrrkk's alarm!"
He blinked at her uncertainly for several seconds. "Then that 176
means . . ." he trailed off and grimaced. "I'm afraid to say it out loud, for fear I'm dreaming," he admitted.
"It means that we've found a world with an oxy-nitrogen atmosphere! It means that maybe we've got a chance!"
A slow smile spread across his face. "If I'm still dreaming, please don't wake me up."
"We're both awake," she said. "It's real ... oh, Rob!" Impulsively, she flung her arms around him and hugged him hard. He returned her embrace so violently that the breath whooshed out of her lungs.
"Air!" he whooped, kissing her face ecstatically, forehead, cheeks, left eyelid, nose, then hugging her again. "Thank you, God-- air!"
Her cheeks red with excitement, Mahree pulled herself out of his arms.
"C'mon, let's turn off that thing, then wake Dhurrrkk'!"
"That rinky-dink little thing?" Rob exclaimed a few minutes later, as he took in the red dwarf occupying the middle of Rosinante's main viewscreen.
"Good grief, it's only 170,000 kilometers in diameter--barely bigger than Jupiter! I could pi--" He stopped abruptly at a look from Mahree. "I mean, I could spit on that star and put it out!"
Dhu
rrrkk' nodded. "It is indeed very small," he admitted.
"It's all we've got, so be nice," Mahree said absently, reading a translation of the Simiu characters on her computer link. "It's got two planets--one a frozen hunk not even big enough to be spherical, the other about six-tenths the size of Earth. That's the one with the atmosphere. It orbits the star at a distance of about four million kilometers, and it does not rotate, so it always keeps the same face toward its sun. Its year is a whopping fourteen hours."
"But I am getting definite readings of oxygen in its atmosphere," Dhurrrkk'
pointed out, in defense of his discovery. "Not as high a content as we could have wished, perhaps, but at this point, we have no alternative."
"Can we breathe the air?" Rob asked.
"Unknown. We are still too far away to judge."
"When we get there, we'll have to land," Mahree said, still speaking Simiu.
She had brought her voder along, but so far hadn't bothered to strap it on.
"Can this ship perform an atmosphere landing, FriendDhurrrkk'?"
"It has belly-jets for landing. Whether I can pilot it to a safe 177
set-down is another matter," the Simiu said, his expression rueful. "I have performed many docking maneuvers at space stations, and have landed at spaceports, but I have never set down on anything but artificial terrain."
"Won't the computers help?" Rob asked, watching Dhurrrkk's face. Ever since this trip had begun, he'd practiced making himself watch the Simiu when he spoke, rather than relying solely on his voder screen.
"Yes," Dhurrrkk' replied, "they will, but it will be my responsibility to locate a suitable spot for our landing."
"How soon will we achieve orbit?"
"Four hours," Dhurrrkk' told him. "That will not leave us much time, but that cannot be helped."
The doctor nodded. I really am getting better, he thought, pleased. I can understand him pretty well now, when he speaks slowly and simply. Now if I can just get so I can pronounce the damned language ...
"I'm trying to hold myself back from getting excited," Mahree said quietly.
"There's still so much that could go wrong. This planet's atmosphere could contain poisonous trace elements. The air may be so thin that it can't sustain us. The plants may not be something we can transplant to Rosinante's hydroponics area. Hell, there may not even be any plant life."
Rob put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick, hard squeeze and a peck on the forehead. "Think positive, honey. This place represents our last chance."
He felt her body tense, then she relaxed within the circle of his arm. "It's not as though it can hear us, Rob," she said, with a wry smile.
"You never know," he said. "In one of my films there was this planet that was a huge sentient life-form, and when these hapless astronauts landed on it, it--"
"Spare me," she said, laughing. "You and your films--!"
Rob dropped his arm from Mahree's shoulders as he noticed that Dhurrrkk'
was regarding both of them, his violet eyes thoughtful. "I am conscious of a change, here," he observed, at length. "I believe that I am detecting patterns of human pre-mating behavior I have viewed in your holo-vids. First the embrace, then the kiss, correct? If so, is this one of the occasions in which that activity is a precursor to mating?"
Rob opened his mouth to answer, choked instead, and hastily
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put a hand over his mouth so he wouldn't laugh. He felt his face reddening.
Mahree colored, too, but handled herself with comparative aplomb. "No, I'm afraid not, FriendDhurrrkk'," she replied. "But it was extremely perceptive of you to notice when Rob hugged and kissed me. You are undoubtedly becoming your world's foremost expert on human behavior patterns."
Dhurrrkk's crest rose to its highest elevation. "You do me great honor, FriendMahree. Will you require privacy for any eventual activities, or are they, like your holo-vids, available for public viewing?"
Rob couldn't look at Mahree as she replied, with serene dignity, "In real life, privacy is the social rule, Dhurrrkk'."
"I understand," the Simiu said aloud in English, with, Rob thought, just a hint of regret.
"Not to change the subject," the doctor announced loudly, to extricate Mahree from any further discussion along such lines, "but I just realized I'm very hungry. Since we have several hours to wait, we might as well eat."
"But he did change the subject," he could hear Dhurrrkk' saying plaintively to Mahree as they left the control room. "When he said that he would not. Why would he say that?"
"It's an idiomatic expression, FriendDhurrrkk'," Mahree said, also in English, and Rob could hear her struggling not to break down and laugh. "I can't think of a way to explain it."
"A dirty joke?" Dhurrrkk' suggested, hopefully.
"Sort of," Mahree gasped, losing the battle and dissolving completely.
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CHAPTER 13
Twilight World
This is probably my last entry. Dhurrrkk' set us down fifteen minutes ago, and at the moment he and Rob are in the control room, checking the data from the flyovers. I'm waiting until it's time to suit up. There's not much oxygen out there. But we have to try, don't we?
I'm scared.
I'll be leaving my computer link and these journal cassettes in the airlock, which is the first place anyone who discovers Rosinante will enter. Unless they're Jerry's energy beings, of course ...
That's assuming that this ship will ever be found, which is not a bet I'd care to cover. Instead, Rosinante will probably crumble into dust or rust away thousands or millions of years from now ...
I'm leaving this account just the way I wrote it. Sometime in these past hours I came to realize that love is never something to be ashamed of feeling.
The sole UNIVERSAL TRUTH that I've learned in seventeen years is that truthful and accurate Communication is the MOST IMPORTANT thing in the cosmos. I used to think it was Love, but you can love someone and not understand them. Understanding (not necessarily acceptance) is vital in dealing with other people, whether those people are human, Simiu, Mizari, or energy beings.
Well, I'm out of time. To whoever finds this, in whatever language you speak, I extend a warm "Hello!"
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And-- Goodbye.
Mahree stood in the control room door, wearing her spacesuit, its helmet tucked under her arm. She listened intently as Rob and Dhurrrkk' completed the atmospheric analysis of the chill little worldlet where Rosinante now rested.
"That's all very well and good," she broke in, interrupting their jargon-laden exchange impatiently after a few minutes, "but what's the bottom line? Can we breathe out there?"
Rob scowled at his link, considering. "Doubtful," he concluded. "At least, not for more than a minute or so. Nothing in the air can hurt us to breathe it, but the overall oxy level is like being on top of a high mountain, Earthside. The slightest exertion, and we'd pass out in short order."
"Could we breathe it while we're resting? Sit down and take off our helmets to conserve our breathing paks?"
"You might--and I stress might-- be able to, for a short time, but I wouldn't risk either Dhurrrkk' or me trying it."
Mahree bit her lip. "What about the plants?" she said.
Rob shook his head, obviously bewildered. "I just don't know," he said. "It's an extremely peculiar situation out there. Certain locations have significantly higher concentrations of O2 than others--but there's no consistent correlation between those oxy concentrations and the patches we identified as vegetation during our low-level sweep. Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they don't. We're not too far from one of the higher concentrations of oxygen, so we'll just have to take a look."
"How can there be higher concentrations of oxygen? Doesn't the gas dissipate into the atmosphere?"
"Sure--some. But this place has no tides, no weather. The temperature is a constant four degrees, just above freezing, and that doesn't vary, because there's no night. So there's no
wind to move the atmosphere around. And oxygen is a comparatively heavy gas, so that when it's emitted under these circumstances, it tends to stay in one place, at least for a while." He glanced at his watch. "We'd better get going. Air's awasting."
Within minutes, the three explorers were ready. The doctor carried a sensing device to help them locate and analyze the local vegetation in their search for the O2 concentrations.
"The gravity is low," he warned Mahree as Dhurrrkk' began 181
cycling the air out of the airlock into storage, where it could be reused.
"About half a gee. Be careful."
"Does Dhurrrkk' know that?" she asked. The two humans could talk to each other, but there had been no time to adjust their suit radios to the Simiu wavelength. They could communicate sketchily by touching helmets and shouting, but that form of conversation had obvious limits.
"Yeah, he knows."
The outer doors split apart, then opened wide. Mahree stepped cautiously down the ramp, watching her footing, because the ramp was steep, and her feet had an alarming tendency to slip in the low gravity--gravity which felt doubly light, because she'd spent days now living at one and a half gee.
Finally she was standing safely on solid ground, free to look around. Mahree caught her breath with excitement, thrilled despite their desperate situation to actually be standing on an alien world. I'm the first human to ever tread here, she realized. One giant step, and all that stuff.
Slowly, searching for any patches of the vegetation that had so puzzled Rob, she rotated 360 degrees, staring avidly.
It was a bleak vista that met her eyes--cold, yet washed everywhere with a hellish scarlet illumination from the red dwarf overhead. The ground beneath her feet was hard, black-brown rock, with a thin, damp layer of dark grayish brown soil overlaying it. A dank red mist lay close along the ground, pooling deeper in any depressions. Mahree could see for a long way in most directions, because the ground, though rock-strewn and broken, was relatively flat.
She lifted her face to the sun, and her faceplate's polarizing ability automatically cut in--but the protection was hardly necessary. The light level was dim, about that of a cloudy twilight. Dhurrrkk's going to be nearly blind, she realized, and said as much to Rob.
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